The activities based on 4 approaches

To start with my, the behaviorist approach, in preparatory school my teacher Engin Kaça made us repeat after him for the pronunciation studies. It was based on imitation, and we did as robots. Also, in high school some of our teachers acted as if we were not in class, they just lectured, gave tests, did examinations and graded as they wished. Engin Hoca's style was good actually, sometimes imitation is needed and enjoyable, however, lecturing as students are not there is not a satisfactory way of teaching. After, cognitivist approach, in both high school and preparatory school, our teachers established a scenery or problems that we had to live. We thought a lot and acted the way as we wish.. This improved our cognitive development. This point is beneficial for me, for us. For constructivist approach, we mainly dealt with social interactions, tasks that served us problems and etc. When it comes to social psychology perspective, actually I do not remember whether our teachers acted according to the classrooms' needs, but in high school, our teachers were acting as they wished. They applied their approaches which were easy for them to use. So this creates the problem in 2nd language teaching. They seemed preparing us for exams more than gaining that language. I say that, we are living in 21st centuary, and only Steve hoca use technology such effectively. So I reccomend my former teachers to meet with Steve hoca, so that they can learn how to use technology in education.

ELT Methodology I.

Learning "English Language Teaching" is the most important issue in our department "EFL". The course ELT Methodology I is the first course I've taken in the way learning ELT. Alev Hoca, made us present the course week by week, she let us think and find a solution when there was a problem. Problem here was generally created by Alev Hoca in order to observe how we react against that. I can say that we have covered the course with eclectic approach; that is, as we covered the methods and their approaches, we performed the methods by considering their approaches in fron of the class, by including our friends as considering them our students. So, we experienced behaviorist, constructivist, cognitivist and social psychologist approaches. We have seen the upsides and downsides of the approaches when used as only. Eclectic requires more then one approach use in classroom. Also Alev Hoca claimed that the combination of the methods requires this eclectic way of teaching. When it comes to the technological or normal materials that used in class, videos only demonstrated by Alev hoca and she wanted us to use the materials that the methods require. We did so, also she let us use various creative materials such as balloons, weird hats, toys, sometimes food etc. By doing so, I have learnt well the students' and the teacher's role, what the methods require by considering the approaches, the benefits of eclectic teaching, the materials that support our teaching, the difference among student centered, teacher centered and balanced teaching.

Is email really dead? (or dying?)

In the U.S.A. teenagers use of email is on the decline. It appears that they prefer to use IM (instant messaging) or social media to cummunication with each other.

Notice that almost 40% of teenagers do not even know how to use email!

Issues

     To start with, use of technology is is not a common thing in Turkey.  Especially, when it comes to the foreign language teaching, the only technology being used is tape player, for the listening activities. Why do not Turkish teacher use websites like www.italki.com in order to make their students do practice? People in Turkey can barely speak English after they graduate from foreign languages department. This is weird. We are living in 21th centuary and still we use tape players, which is funny...
    I actually use Creative Commons copyrights, for example, this blog is protected under CC copyrights, in order not to let other people use my ideas, researches, sharings etc, I use CC copyrights.
    Besides CTE 319, we do not use technology in our class so effectively. Projector, powerpoints and videos are common technologies we use in classes.
   I think it is 50% our responsible to make sure our students develop digital literacy. Because, we are living in 21th century, we have to use technology in order to catch the world. However, it is students' responsibility to catch our teaching (with techology) and develop themselves.

Literacy Skills

   When I finished high school, my English was not enough for starting EFL 1st year. Also, as I go furher, I learnt how my skills are satisfactory and unsatisfactory for academia. For example, my English was okay in understanding, writing and speaking. That is why I could pass the prepatory school. Also, my computer skill was good too. I passed CNG 100 exam in the first time. But of course these literacies are not enough for having a successful academic life. Now, I am writing about EFL Dept., literature, linguistics, classroom management and ELT are the points I needed to develope. I am still developing these skills to be a good teacher. I do not only go to school but also research good sources, watch qualified videos. I also try to develop myself socially. Because, being a teacher requires good relationship with other people. I joined folklore club, being in there for three years developed my managing, teamworking, interpersonal skills. I am still trying to develop myself in my freetime such as working in summers. I really feel it makes me better than who spend their free time just freely. :) As a candidate teacher, in my opinion, a teacher must be professional on his/her area to give the best! It would be better if a teacher is competent in all literacies but if he or she is not, then still he or she can be a good teacher.

Language Acquisition in Babies & An unbelievable subject!

Please watch the videos, you'll be impressed.
The first one is about Language acquisition in babies.

Patricia Kuhl

And here second one is amazing test!
How smart this guy is !!

Deb Roy

Newest Technology

It seems that Turkey is above the average of newest technology use.
However, do Turkish people use it purposefully? I personally do not agree.

Chart

An interesting video